Chapter 8 - THE WAR AFTER THE WAR
Destroying Moretti did not make Chicago peaceful.
It made Chicago available.
Within weeks, smaller crews began fighting over abandoned territory.
Marco could have taken all of it.
Instead, he did something nobody expected.
He began walking away.
Illegal gambling operations closed.
Predatory lending networks disappeared.
Three warehouses were sold.
A trucking company once used for smuggling became legitimate.
Men who preferred the old business complained.
Some left.
A few threatened him.
Marco let them.
Sera noticed.
"You don't have to prove anything to me."
They stood on his balcony overlooking the city.
"I'm not."
"Then why?"
Marco considered the skyline.
"Because you asked me once whether I was replacing Moretti."
"I remember."
"I didn't like the answer."
She looked at him.
"What was it?"
"I might have."
That honesty mattered more than a prettier answer.
Marco turned toward her.
"I spent my entire life thinking there were only two kinds of people. The ones who controlled the room and the ones controlled by it."
"And now?"
"Now I know there's a third."
Sera waited.
"The woman who throws someone through the table."
She laughed.
He kissed her.
Their relationship was not easy.
Sera hated security details.
Marco hated when she disappeared for three hours without answering.
She still lived in her terrible apartment.
Marco finally visited it and stared at the broken front lock.
"No."
Sera put down her groceries.
"What?"
"You cannot live here."
"I have for four years."
"The building is one strong breeze away from becoming gravel."
"It's rent-controlled."
"Your ceiling is leaking."
"Character."
"There's a mouse."
"Gerald."
"You named it?"
"He was here first."
Marco stared at her.
Sera smiled.
Two months later, she moved.
Not into Marco's house.
That would have been too easy.
She rented a small apartment six blocks away.
Marco quietly bought the building.
Sera discovered this forty-eight hours later.
She marched into his office.
"You bought my building."
"No."
"Marco."
"I bought the company that owns your building."
"That's worse."
"The plumbing needed work."
She stared at him.
"Sell it."
"No."
"Marco."
"The roof also needs replacement."
She threw a pen at him.
He caught it.
Their fights became legendary among his staff.
So did their reconciliations.
But the real change happened with Eli.
He struggled.
Freedom after twelve years of coercion felt less like freedom than falling.
He woke from nightmares.
He checked windows.
He disappeared for days.
Sera tried to fix him.
Marco told her not to.
"He needs to decide what comes next."
"He's my brother."
"Exactly."
She looked at Marco.
"You understand me annoyingly well."
"I've invested considerable time."
Eventually Eli chose something nobody expected.
He started working with a nonprofit helping teenagers leaving foster care.
Sera visited one afternoon.
She watched her brother teaching a seventeen-year-old boy how to change a tire.
For the first time, she could imagine a future that wasn't organized around surviving the past.
Then Marco received the envelope.
No return address.
Inside was a photograph.
Sera leaving her apartment.
A red circle around her head.
On the back:
CAVALLO TOOK EVERYTHING.
WE TAKE HERS.
Marco didn't tell her.
That was his mistake.
He doubled her security.
She noticed immediately.
"Why is there a second car?"
"Routine."
"You're bad at lying."
"I'm excellent at lying."
"Not to me."
He tried to change the subject.
Sera waited until he showered.
Then checked his desk.
The photograph was inside.
When Marco returned, she was sitting on the bed holding it.
His face changed.
"You went through my desk."
"You hid a death threat."
"I was handling it."
Sera stood.
"That's not protection."
"It is literally protection."
"No. It's control."
"Sera—"
"You don't get to decide what I'm allowed to know because you're scared."
Marco's jaw tightened.
"I watched you stop breathing."
"And I watched my brother disappear because people decided what I should know for twelve years."
That stopped him.
She placed the photograph on the bed.
"If we're doing this, you don't hide danger from me."
"I'm trying to keep you alive."
"Then trust me enough to help."
Marco looked at her.
The old Marco would have argued.
Ordered.
Controlled.
Instead he nodded.
"Okay."
Sera's anger softened.
"Okay?"
"Don't make me repeat it. I have a reputation."
She smiled.
Then his phone rang.
Marco answered.
His expression changed immediately.
"What?"
Sera watched him.
He ended the call.
"That was Eli."
"What happened?"
"The foster center."
May you like
Her smile vanished.
"Someone set it on fire."
